JULY'S THIS 'N' THAT

FINALLY summer has arrived here in southern California and this fellow clearly expresses just how hot it is.  I shall never again be able to eat a soft ice cream cone or a soft yogurt without causing it to wear such a face, or as near to a face as I can make.  Takes an artist to do it up right!

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And speaking of art, the trip to LACMA last week not only provided a good view of the rock, but also I noted a neat bit of PR.  Can you see on the tickets what I'm talking about?

The top ticket was mine.  I was the adult.  The lower ticket belonged to my granddaughter.  Instead of listing her as a child, she is called "The Next Generation!"  I was wowed by that little switch in reference.  She didn't care, but I sure thought it was a neat idea, and one I might use sometime!

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Over the years I've been introduced to a lot of "stuff" by my granddaughters.  This year it was the Disney program "Good Luck, Charlie."  In case you haven't seen it, its a sitcom whereby the teenagers of this family decide to make a videotape for their littlest sibling, Charlie, so she'll have some understanding later of the family shes getting into.  (That is the explanation given me by my girls; who knows if it is exactly true or not?)  Anyway, each episode features the teens and family doing something funny or odd or clever -- and the show closes with shutting off the video with the words, "Good Luck, Charlie."  The girls have videotaped all the "best" of the series and wanted me to watch with them.  I admit it was pretty darn cute.

Through the years I've been introduced to Baby Einstein, the teletubbies, that blue dog and the red animal, whatever it is, Sponge Bob Square Pants (did I get it right?), last year iCarly and now this year "Good Luck, Charlie."   All have been fun in small doses, and I do marvel mostly at the talent of all the teens in these programs.  And believe me, it does my heart good to see that my granddaughters  are video-taping good stuff.  The bad stuff comes around way too early and too quickly!

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My old tee shirt that read, "So Many Books, So Little Time" - in both English and Latin, finally wore out and I couldn't find another that I liked as well.  So when I came upon this shirt - a wonderful sketch by illustrator Edward Gorey, I knew I couldn't live without it.  It had "ME" written all over it.  I ordered it online; it's a little pricey, and being a white tee-shirt I have to take really good care of it and not wear it everywhere every day (which I would really like to do), but it sure does make me happy.

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And thinking of cats reminds me that I came close to having a minor breakdown and taking in another kitty.  Erin's Oreo had 6 babies, all adorable and all eminently cuddley.  I had told myself I never would start with a kitten again, that if I were to replace Tigger or Cipsi it would be with a grown cat.  But when I saw this little one (7 days old at the time) I waivered.  I mean, how often can you find a cat with an exclamation point on him.  A black tail, with a dot at the bottom (ignoring the body space, of course.)  I had already named him -- SELAH!  I learned that word from old J. Vernon McGee, a pastor who had a wonderful program on the radio many years ago and who said the word "SELAH," found in the Psalms, really had no definite meaning but it was kind of like the use of an exclamation point, or after a statement of "Think of that!"

So for about a week I tossed around the idea of bringing Selah into the house as a companion for Squeaky.  But before I found it necessary to determine Selah's gender (I wanted only a male cat) I decided I really didn't want a kitten after all.  But it was a tough decision to make.  I think Jerry might even have approved.

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I haven't shown anything Turkish in a while, so today's final series of photos are interesting and funny.  In a part of Turkey distant from Istanbul, a group of us on tour came upon a group of young woman with very interesting headscarves.  The scarves were regional and quite lovely.  

Several of us went into town and bought one for ourselves.  It was a block print on soft, silky material.  Before we left the town we had a lady show us how to wear it the Turkish way, which also necessitated using a solid black scarf put on underneath.  At home in Istanbul in our flat, I used it as a decorator tablecloth.

The picture below is of me, complete with scarves -- worn in the traditional manner.  You'd be able to tell, of course, that I do not look at all like a Turk.  What you see is a very Anglo face (a fat face, then) in a Turkish setting.  I got lots of mileage with this picture.   It was good for a laugh everytime I showed it to people.  I wasn't crazy about the picture either, but I liked that it really showed so much better the way the scarf was worn.

Slowly but surely I have been letting go of my Turkish artifacts, which is a sad thing to do but as they say, you can't take it with you, and I can't inflict all my Turkish memories on people who haven't been there. So this scarf is gone now. But at least I have the pictures so I won't forget that special time and place.